Sunday 4 February 2007

Pic of the day: The central structure of a castle is called its keep. Traditionally it was a castle within the castle: In case enemies managed to break the outer castle walls, the keep was the innermost refuge. You can see it to the right in this screenshot from Daggerfall.

Heart's Keep

Theories are true only until proven false. But when we talk about what we have seen and what we have lived, we add to the amount of truth in the world. Even if others have said it better, they have not seen the world from where you stand; and even if you say the same words, you say them with your own voice.

I have said it before, that I see my writing as adding an inch at a time to the island of consensus reality (the world we agree on). You may think of theories as buildings that rise up in the air, but they need to have ground to stand on. You cannot build them on the waves of the chaotic, unexplored imagination. (Though sometimes it looks like people do that.) I prefer to build low structures built directly on observation, or at most the observation of others. Philosophers and theologians these days build upon thousands of years of theories, but I have a fear of heights. I like best when people know from their own lives what they talk about.

***

The soul of the unfortunate is scattered and blown around even by everyday things. Not only stress and adversity, but even temptation and entertainent. Like a leaf dancing in the wind, the mind flies soon here, soon there, soon up, soon down. In the morning is is tempted astray by pleasure, in the evening it is chased away by fears. Away from what? It has no resting place, but lies down where it stands, like a grazing sheep. When it finds a good spot, it savors it, but then the dogs bark and it runs away, and never will it find that spot again, except perhaps by sheer coincidence.

The fortunate soul is taught to build in its heart a keep. This is a labor, and seemingly a pointless one, when all you see is the naked rock. You carry a stone and lay it down. How, asks the foolishness, has my life been improved by a rock? You carry another stone and lay it next to the first. How does a couple stones keep me safe? At the end of the day you are weary, and all you got was this lousy pile of rocks. Unlucky are those who leave now: Forever will they consider the possible to be impossible. It takes many days to lay even an outline, months to build a foundation. But years later, your heart has a keep of stone, and the storms and the thunder and the wolves cannot reach in there.

Another way to describe someone who has a heart's keep is this: They are centered. Or, they are grounded. A sheep wanders off but a tree remains rooted. A tumbleweed blows away in the wind, but a rock remains. Lucky is the one who grows up among rocks and trees, and who early gets to watch others build their keeps.

***

It is rare these days to be completely superficial. To such a person it would make no sense to say: "I think, therefore I am." Rather they would say: "I eat, therefore I am." Or as I heard a woman say on radio once, seemingly in earnest: "I don't have a body. I am a body." This is a horror I would not inflict on an enemy, if I had an enemy. To walk through life convinced that you are a slab of meat? Even if you think the soul is temporary and mortal (which in fact I think), it is still a wonderful thing, more precious than an arm and a leg and an eye. A mind, as the proverb goes, is a terrible thing to waste. I can hardly think of a worse fate than to be born human but live and die an animal.

But if you can at all turn your mind's eye inward - even briefly - then your skills of the soul can grow with practice. Just as with the body, some are more talented in this. They may have been born that way (surely some are) or they may have learned very early from those around them. It will be harder if you are superficial when you start. It will be like a weakling, a pencil pusher or couch potato, trying to build with stone. It will take longer time and be less pleasant. But it will still be possible, and like any worker you will grow stronger and more secure as time passes.

If you are to center your heart, it makes sense not to center it on something fleeting, like a computer game, an infatuation, or most jobs these days. Rather it would make sense to bind your heart to something eternal: God, Love, Truth, Virtue, Beauty. At least something that has lasting value. (Obviously you would not have read this far if you did not believe anything has lasting value.) The various religions and philosophies have their own recommendations for this. But in any case, you need awareness. You need to at least briefly be awake, conscious and alive.

Out of a life of 60 or 80 years, how many hours have you been truly alive? How much have you been present in your body and the world here and now? The normal condition is to drift on an endless flood of habits, not just of action but also of thought. Thinking the same thoughts, feeling the same feelings, unaware, unreflected. To become aware is a matter of good luck at first. We need to seize that luck, to hold on to it, to cling to self-awareness for as long as we can, train it like a muscle.

A good way to do this can be, ironically, a habit: To set aside a certain time each day for this exact purpose. That is not to say that it should be the only time we are aware, but this time is set apart for training that awareness. You may choose to meditate, to just observe, to listen to music. But aware. Not absorbed in the object of your observation. Ideally the object of your observation is your own awareness. To just be, without the plans and the daydreams and the worries that fill a human day. Whatever you observe, to be detached from it, for a short while, to be aware of your separation from all things. For only through this can you become one with all things. You cannot drag your TV with you into Nirvana, or into the Kingdom of Heaven, or the Keep of your Heart. You cannot take the periphery with you into the center. You have to go all alone.

After a long time, so I am told, for those meditating daily for 20 years or more, it is not uncommon to enter a stage of continual awareness. To not be fully absorbed by anything ever again, but rather to be fully present in them. While sounding similar, the two are opposite. These men (and probably some women) are aware during joy and sorrow, lust and work, even during the deepest sleep*. A wordless awareness of who they are, of being fully present. "I am aware even without thinking, therefore I always am", they might say. If that scares you, just don't go that far. But you may change your mind once you have begun to experience the joy of being you. For that is what you are invited to: To act from out of your own center, of your own free will, rather than being blown restlessly by every gust of wind.

*) Find it hard to believe that people can be aware even when asleep? Watch this video of philosopher Ken Wilber emulating the brain waves of various levels of sleep while hooked up to an EEG machine.